On August 19, 2003, Peck was arrested in California and charged with 11 counts of sexual misconduct with a minor. The abuse occurred in 2001 and the underaged male victim's identity was concealed at the time of the trial to protect his identity. Peck entered a plea deal in 2004 and pleaded
no contest to "lewd acts upon a child 14 or 15 years of age" and "oral copulation with a minor under 16 years of age", referred to in the
California Penal Code as 288(c)(1) and 288a(b)(2), later that year. He served 16 months in prison from 2004 to 2005 and must register as a
sex offender for the rest of his life. In 2024, the Corrells, Strong, Friedle, Kerns, and DeSanto apologized for their past support of Peck. In an episode of
Pod Meets World, Friedle and Strong said that they were misled by Peck, who told them that his misconduct occurred only once and that the victim was "almost 18." Kerns and DeSanto also said that they had been misled and if they had known all of the details, they would not have supported Peck. In 2024, more than twenty years after Peck's arrest and conviction,
Investigation Discovery released
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, a
docuseries that addresses child sexual abuse in the entertainment industry. Former
Nickelodeon star
Drake Bell appeared on Episode 3 and revealed that he had been sexually and psychologically abused by Peck, who worked with him on
The Amanda Show and
Drake & Josh. Bell was 15 years old at the time, while Peck was in his early 40s. A 2014 documentary,
An Open Secret, also discussed Peck's abusive conduct, though Bell had not been identified at that point in time. ==Personal life==